Carnival Party Part IV - Refrigerator Box Ticket Booth

What is a carnival without a ticket booth?  In planning for Ethan's carnival birthday party, I saw lots of cute ideas out there for making a ticket booth and was inspired to create my own :) 

Of course I did not want to break the bank on something I knew would be loved and abused during the party.  With this in mind, I figured a refrigerator as the base for the ticket booth would work great.  I called a local appliance store and asked for the warehouse to save me a refrigerator box.  Thankfully they were more than willing to do so :)

My first step was to turn the cardboard red. I decided to use spray paint.  Caution - if you use spray paint, make sure you get enough.  The three cans I originally purchased only went half way.  I was running to the store in the middle of the painting project :)  I ended up using about 5 and 1/2 cans of red spray paint. I would have spray painted the inside of the box to give it the finished look, but I couldn't justify another 5 cans of spray paint to do that :)

After the spray paint dried, I took white duct tape (duct tape comes in every color and tons of patterns!) and started applying it as stripes going up and down the front of the box.  I did not have the box assembled at this point, making it easier to do this with the box still lying flat on the ground.

Once the front of the box was "striped," I took a level and drew out with a pencil the shape for the "window."  Make sure you get it low enough for the little ones that will be handing out the tickets.  I then had my husband take a box cutter and cut out the window shape.

After the window was cut out, I took the cardboard letters that I had previously painted white and applied them to the box (still flat at this point).  I adhered the letters to the box with wood glue. 

For the "finials" on the top corners of the box, I used a pennant from the Dimple Prints carnival collection, adhered it to a small wooden stick and tied ribbon to the bottom part of the pennant.  I set those aside until the box was assembled.

The day before the party, my husband taped the box together, using red duct tape.  We cut a door in the back of the box, by cutting three sides of the "door."  I then took the pennants and taped them to the top sides of the box.

Add kids and presto - easy, DIY ticket booth.  By the end of the party, the ticket booth was barely standing.  The kids would have loved to have kept it, but it needed to be put to carnival pasture!

Next, I can't wait to show you our yummy carnival style menu!